For Democrats and their friends in the Irish-American community, there were really only two parties who achieved the Good Friday Agreement: the Clinton administration and the courageous peacemakers of the Irish Republican movement.
And so it was that Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams topped the bill last Monday at a grand back-slapping affair for Sinn Fein and their unnamed comrades in New York.
Held in the Great Hall at Cooper Union where – the full-to-capacity audience was reminded – Abraham Lincoln had once made a historic 1860 speech opposing the spread of slavery, the pair spoke, separately, at a free event titled ‘Reflections on The Good Friday Agreement: 25 Years of Peace & Progress’. It should have added ‘…towards a united Ireland’ to the title because that was a hoped-for outcome expressed many times over the course of three long hours.
The Unionists are our neighbours,’ Gerry Adams said. ‘We want them to become our friends.
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